When the thirteenth issue of The Green Sheaf appeared in late spring 1904, it marked both the end of the magazine’s print run and the start of a new entrepreneurial venture for Pamela Colman Smith (1878-1951). Signalling that “After this (the 13th) number The Green Sheaf will be discontinued,” Smith goes on to announce the opening of her “Shop at No. 3 Park Mansion Arcade, Knightsbridge, London,” where her School of Hand-Colouring had just opened (Smith, Front Cover). Given this recent relocation of Smith’s activities, it is possible that the images in Green Sheaf No. 13 may have been hand-coloured in the Park Mansion shop, rather than Smith’s Milborne Grove premises (fig. 1). With the move of the School from her Chelsea studio to a smart shop in a newly built arcade in fashionable Knightsbridge, Smith aimed at increasing both her professional profile and her profits. Together with a Mrs. Fortescue, Smith launched The Green Sheaf shop as a locale where aesthetically minded consumers could purchase “Hand-Coloured Prints and other Engravings, Drawings, and Pictures, Books” and order custom-made “Christmas and Invitation Cards, Menus, Ball Programmes, Book Labels, and every kind of Decorative Printing and Hand-Colouring” (Smith, Illustrated Advertisement).

Although not explicitly stated in this Advertisement, a key concern of the shop was the publication of limited-edition books by subscription, printed on a hand press, and hand-coloured on the premises (O’Connor 56). Smith promised that “notices of all publications issued by [the Green Sheaf Press] will be sent to all Green Sheaf Subscribers” (Smith, Front Cover) and offered a sample of her work in the illustration that headed the expanded advertisement in the Supplement (fig. 2). Smith later promoted Green Sheaf Press books to the wider little magazine community by advertising in The Venture, whose readership might reasonably be assumed to be interested in the fine-press limited editions she published (Smith, Advertisement in Venture).

The Green Sheaf magazine makes its final appearance as an eight-page booklet whose paratextual matter threatens to overwhelm its meagre contents. In addition to publishing “A Horror of the House of Dreams” by the late Frederick York Powell (1850-1904) and a “Reminiscence” of the scholar by his friend John Todhunter (1839-1916), the eight-page Supplement contains an inserted Illustrative Supplement. The full-page, removable portrait of Powell is a souvenir sketch by John Butler Yeats (1839-1922), “reproduced by kind permission of Oliver Elton, Esq.,” who was to become Powell’s biographer. When published in 1906, Elton’s Frederick York Powell: A Life and Selection from his Letters and Occasional Writings would include Powell’s “poetic preface on the drawings of Miss Pamela Smith,” which he had written for the catalogue of the exhibition of her work at John Baillie’s Gallery in November 1903 (Elton 2.321). The date of Powell’s death—8 May 1904—suggests that The Green Sheaf’s thirteenth number was likely published in June of that year. Since the memorial for “the late Frederick York Powell” had been announced in the previous issue, the twelfth Green Sheaf could not have appeared before the middle of May at the earliest, with the thirteenth following approximately a month thereafter (Smith, Front Cover, No. 12).

The contents of Green Sheaf No. 13 do not key to the Supplement’s commemorative tropes. Instead, the final number stays true to its manifesto’s declared commitment to “tales of …the sea” and “the old world” that remain “green for ever” (Smith, Front Cover, No. 13). Comprised of five poems, a prose extract, three illustrations and a decoration, the contents collectively explore oceanic themes and a desire to travel away from the constraints of daily life, in some cases to an imagined paradise far away.

For the third time in The Green Sheaf’s thirteen-issue print run, Smith chose an illustrated text by Dorothy Ward (1879-1969) for the magazine’s opening item (fig. 3). Depicting the face-to-face meeting of a water baby and a carp, the medallion-shaped headpiece places the humanoid and piscine creatures within a shared water bubble. While this intimate interconnection gestures toward the ecocritical as much as the fantastic, Ward’s accompanying untitled quatrain highlights the expanse of seas around the earth, and the vastness of “the unknown treasures that hide below” (D. Ward 2). Smith enhances the issue’s watery themes by placing “The Galley Slave,” by frequent contributor Alix Egerton (1879-1932), on the facing page. Complementing Ward’s verses, which imagine unseen treasures in the depths, Egerton’s poem calls up a vision “Of Tir-nan-oge and Avalon and the Far Islands in the West”—the paradisal Other Worlds of Celtic mythology, which the titular slave hopes to reach in the free “hereafter” (Egerton 3).

“Charles at the Seaside,” an excerpt from Lessons for Children (1778) by eighteenth-century author and educationalist Anna Barbauld (1743-1845), reinforces the number’s thematic interests in the sea. Responding to a series of questions by the young Charles, who has travelled to the seaside with his mother to learn how the “great water” differs from “the sea that is in our map,” the Fisherman provides elementary information about the ocean, what is on the other side of its visible expanse, and how the ships that travel across its surface rely on the expertise of sailors (Barbauld 4). Smith takes the first line of the excerpt, “Pray, Fisherman, what is this great water?,” as the caption for her full-page illustration on the facing page (5). Hand-coloured in light blue and golden brown, with accents in yellow, rose, and purple, the image depicts Charles and his mother in eighteenth-century garb, standing on the shore beside a fisherman in boots and a sou’wester hat. When she arrived in London at the turn of the twentieth century, Smith had tried unsuccessfully to find a publisher for an illustrated edition of Barbauld’s Lessons; her book proposal was rejected in turn by Grant Richards, William Heinemann, John Lane, and Gerald Duckworth (O’Connor 44). Frustrated by these rejections, Smith was to include some of her illustrations for “Little Charles,” as she called her book, in magazines over which she had editorial control, such as A Broad Sheet (1902) and The Green Sheaf (1903-4).

In the number’s final page opening, Smith places “Arcadian Songs,” by Eleanor Vicocq Ward (1889-1976) on the verso and “The Wind,” by Evelyn Garnaut Smalley (1869-1938) on the recto. Like Cecil French’s “Aithne” and “Dermid” in the previous issue, Ward’s offering is a dialogue poem between female and male speakers. In contrast to the traditional Irish names French used, however, Ward draws on the stock names for shepherds and shepherdesses in pastoral poetry, Phyllis and Corydon. Calling on her lover to “Come away, come away, to a far-off land,” Phyllis invites him to join her in “the joys of country life.” Corydon is eager to “Leave far behind the smoke-grimed street, / The endless tramp of weary feet” and join her in the bliss of Arcadia (E. Ward 6). Like Egerton’s “The Galley Slave,” Ward’s “Arcadian Songs” expresses a desire for another country, where peace and beauty abound. The younger sister of Dorothy Ward, whose illustrated verses on the sea open the number, Eleanor Vicocq Ward was only fifteen years old. The Ward sisters were granddaughters of Marcus Ward (1806-1847), who founded the Irish publishing firm known for its illustrated books and greeting cards. The younger sister was named for her grandmother, Eleanor Veacock [sic] Ward, who ran the business after Marcus’s early death, until their son William (1842-1918)—the father of the talented sisters—took over when he came of age. The Ward sisters’ various contributions to The Green Sheaf suggest that they inherited an interest in illustrated verses from the family’s ongoing involvement in print culture and ephemera.

Evelyn Garnaut Smalley is the only new contributor to The Green Sheaf’s final number. Like Smith, Smalley was an American from New York; it is possible that the two moved in similar circles and knew each other socially. Smalley is not known to have published elsewhere. A social worker, Smalley was sent to the front by the Y.M.C.A. during World War I; in 1923, she received the Legion of Honour for bravery under fire (“Evelyn G. Smalley,” 15). Celebrating the east wind’s effects on the “wild wild waves,” her poem “The Wind” makes an apt contribution to the number’s watery themes (Smalley 7). Smith punctuates Smalley’s poem with a recycled tailpiece first used for John Masefield’s (1878-1967) “Jan A Dreams” in The Green Sheaf’s second number. For the last decorative flourish in her magazine’s final number, Smith cut out the waves of the original drawing, keeping only the wind-swept autumn leaves (Database of Ornament).

For the first time in its print run, the thirteenth number does not include any advertising material on its back page. Instead, Smith closes the final Green Sheaf with a playful image/text by Reginald Rigby (1881-1943), who had contributed illustrated light verses for the magazine’s eighth issue in December 1903. Rigby’s expertise as a poster artist is evident in the simplified black outline around the purple elephant, who balances a front foot on a pink-and-black ball (fig. 4). The accompanying untitled verses play with the sounds of words and make a comic contrast with the zoomorphic image: “Alfred’s aunt, / Mostly slant, / Plays at ball, / That is all!” (8).

The Green Sheaf’s last word is ludic rather than mystic, and whimsical rather than occult; it connects Smith and her magazine to modern graphic art, rather than the Irish Revival movement and folkloric tradition. But “Alfred’s Aunt” and the matriarchal elephant also point to Pamela Colman Smith’s ongoing feminist concerns. Between 1904 and 1906, she was to publish mainly women authors at her Green Sheaf Press. In 1907, she became a founding member of the Women’s Guild of Arts, established because women were barred from becoming members in the Art Worker’s Guild (Thomas 5). From 1909 to the onset of the first World War, Smith used her graphic-design and hand-printing talents to make visual propaganda at the Suffrage Atelier, an artists’ co-operative established by Laurence (1865-1959) and Clemence Housman (1861-1955) in support of women’s rights.

©2022 Lorraine Janzen Kooistra, FRSC, Senior Research Fellow, Toronto Metropolitan University Centre for Digital Humanities

Works Cited

• Barbauld, Anna. “Charles at the Seaside,” illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith. The Green Sheaf, No. 13, 1904, pp. 4-5. Green Sheaf Digital Edition, edited by Lorraine Janzen Kooistra, Yellow Nineties 2.0, Toronto Metropolitan University Centre for Digital Humanities, 2022.
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• Egerton, Alix. “The Galley Slave.” The Green Sheaf, No. 13, 1904, p. 3. Green Sheaf Digital Edition, edited by Lorraine Janzen Kooistra, Yellow Nineties 2.0, Toronto Metropolitan University Centre for Digital Humanities, 2022.
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• Elton, Oliver. Frederick York Powell: A Life and Selection from his Letters and Occasional Writings, 2 vols, Clarendon Press, 1906.

• “Evelyn G. Smalley, World War Heroine: Decorated for Bravery Under Fire—Dies in France.” New York Times, March 26, 1938, p. 15. ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The New York Times.

• French, Cecil. “Aithne” and “Dermid.” The Green Sheaf, No. 12, 1904, p. 6. Green Sheaf Digital Edition, edited by Lorraine Janzen Kooistra, Yellow Nineties 2.0, Toronto Metropolitan University Centre for Digital Humanities, 2022.
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• O’Connor, Elizabeth Foley. “Pamela’s Life.” Pamela Colman Smith: The Untold Story, by Stuart R. Kaplan with Mary K. Greer, Elizabeth Foley O’Connor, and Melinda Boyd Parsons, U.S. Games, 2018, pp. 11-99.

• Powell, F. York. “A Horror of the House of Dreams.” Supplement [pp. i-iv] to The Green Sheaf, No. 13, 1904. Green Sheaf Digital Edition, edited by Lorraine Janzen Kooistra, Yellow Nineties 2.0, Toronto Metropolitan University Centre for Digital Humanities, 2022.
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• Rigby, Reginald. Untitled [“Alfred’s Aunt],” illustrated by Reginald Rigby. The Green Sheaf, No. 13, 1904, p. 5. Green Sheaf Digital Edition, edited by Lorraine Janzen Kooistra, Yellow Nineties 2.0, Toronto Metropolitan University Centre for Digital Humanities, 2022.
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• Smalley, Evelyn Garnaut. “The Wind,” decorated by Pamela Colman Smith. The Green Sheaf, No. 13, 1904, p. 7. Green Sheaf Digital Edition, edited by Lorraine Janzen Kooistra, Yellow Nineties 2.0, Toronto Metropolitan University Centre for Digital Humanities, 2022.
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• Smith, Pamela Colman. Advertisement for “The Green Sheaf.” The Venture, vol. 2, 1905, p. 193. Venture Digital Edition, edited by Lorraine Janzen Kooistra, Yellow Nineties 2.0, Toronto Metropolitan University Centre for Digital Humanities, 2022.
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• —. Illustrated Advertisement for the Green Sheaf Shop, Knightsbridge, Supplement [p. viii] to The Green Sheaf, No. 13, 1904. Green Sheaf Digital Edition, edited by Lorraine Janzen Kooistra, Yellow Nineties 2.0, Toronto Metropolitan University Centre for Digital Humanities, 2022.
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• —. Illustration for “Jan A Dreams,” by John Masefield. The Green Sheaf, No. 2, 1903, p. 10. Green Sheaf Digital Edition, edited by Lorraine Janzen Kooistra, Yellow Nineties 2.0, Toronto Metropolitan University Centre for Digital Humanities, 2022.
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• —. “Pray, Fisherman, What is this Great Water?,” illustration for “Charles at the Seaside,” by Anna Barbauld. The Green Sheaf, No. 13, 1904, p. 5. Green Sheaf Digital Edition, edited by Lorraine Janzen Kooistra, Yellow Nineties 2.0, Toronto Metropolitan University Centre for Digital Humanities, 2022.
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• —. Front Cover for The Green Sheaf, No. 12, 1904, p. [i]. Green Sheaf Digital Edition, edited by Lorraine Janzen Kooistra, Yellow Nineties 2.0, Toronto Metropolitan University Centre for Digital Humanities, 2022.
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• —. Front Cover for The Green Sheaf, No. 13, 1904, p. [i]. Green Sheaf Digital Edition, edited by Lorraine Janzen Kooistra, Yellow Nineties 2.0, Toronto Metropolitan University Centre for Digital Humanities, 2022.
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• Supplement [pp. i-viii] to The Green Sheaf, No. 13, 1904. Green Sheaf Digital Edition, edited by Lorraine Janzen Kooistra, Yellow Nineties 2.0, Toronto Metropolitan University Centre for Digital Humanities, 2022.

• Todhunter, John. “Frederick York-Powell: A Reminiscence.” Supplement [pp. v-vii] to The Green Sheaf, No. 13, 1904. Green Sheaf Digital Edition, edited by Lorraine Janzen Kooistra, Yellow Nineties 2.0, Toronto Metropolitan University Centre for Digital Humanities, 2022.
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• Thomas, Zoë. Women Art Workers and the Arts and Crafts Movement. Manchester University Press, 2020.

• Ward, Dorothy. Untitled [“Around the earth”], illustrated by Dorothy Ward. The Green Sheaf, No. 13, 1904, p. 2. Green Sheaf Digital Edition, edited by Lorraine Janzen Kooistra, Yellow Nineties 2.0, Toronto Metropolitan University Centre for Digital Humanities, 2022.
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• Ward, Eleanor Vicocq. “Arcadian Songs.” The Green Sheaf, No. 13, 1904, p. 6. Green Sheaf Digital Edition, edited by Lorraine Janzen Kooistra, Yellow Nineties 2.0, Toronto Metropolitan University Centre for Digital Humanities, 2022.
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• Yeats, John Butler. Sketch of Frederick York Powell, 1900. Supplement (np) to The Green Sheaf, No. 13, 1904. Green Sheaf Digital Edition, edited by Lorraine Janzen Kooistra, Yellow Nineties 2.0, Toronto Metropolitan University Centre for Digital Humanities, 2022.
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